The Other Divide

The Other Divide
Author: Yanna Krupnikov
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2022-01-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108831125

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The key to understanding the current wave of American political division is the attention people pay to politics.

The Other Divide

The Other Divide
Author: Yanna Krupnikov
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2022-01-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108924565

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There is little doubt that increasing polarization over the last decade has transformed the American political landscape. In The Other Divide, Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan challenge the nature and extent of that polarization. They find that more than party, Americans are divided by involvement in politics. On one side is a group of Americans who are deeply involved in politics and very expressive about their political views; on the other side is a group much less involved in day-to-day political outcomes. While scholars and journalists have assumed that those who are most vocal about their political views are representative of America at large, they are in fact a relatively small group whose voices are amplified by the media. By considering the political differences between the deeply involved and the rest of the American public, Krupnikov and Ryan present a broader picture of the American electorate than the one that often appears in the news.

The Divide

The Divide
Author: Taylor Dotson
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2021-08-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0262365987

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Why our obsession with truth--the idea that some undeniable truth will make politics unnecessary--is driving our political polarization. In The Divide, Taylor Dotson argues provocatively that what drives political polarization is not our disregard for facts in a post-truth era, but rather our obsession with truth. The idea that some undeniable truth will make politics unnecessary, Dotson says, is damaging democracy. We think that appealing to facts, or common sense, or nature, or the market will resolve political disputes. We view our opponents as ignorant, corrupt, or brainwashed. Dotson argues that we don't need to agree with everyone, or force everyone to agree with us; we just need to be civil enough to practice effective politics. Dotson shows that we are misguided to pine for a lost age of respect for expertise. For one thing, such an age never happened. For another, people cannot be made into ultra-rational Vulcans. Dotson offers a road map to guide both citizens and policy makers in rethinking and refashioning political interactions to be more productive. To avoid the trap of divisive and fanatical certitude, we must stop idealizing expert knowledge and romanticizing common sense. He outlines strategies for making political disputes more productive: admitting uncertainty, sharing experiences, and tolerating and negotiating disagreement. He suggests reforms to political practices and processes, adjustments to media systems, and dramatic changes to schooling, childhood, the workplace, and other institutions. Productive and intelligent politics is not a product of embracing truth, Dotson argues, but of adopting a pluralistic democratic process.

Other Side of the Divide

Other Side of the Divide
Author: Sameer Arshad Khatlani
Publisher: Ebury Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2020-02-06
Genre: Lahore (Pakistan)
ISBN: 9780670091942

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Pegged on journalist Sameer Arshad Khatlani's visit to Pakistan, this book provides insights into the country beyond what we already know about it. These include details on the impact of India's soft power, thanks to Bollywood, and the remnants of Pakistan's multireligious past, and how it frittered away advantages of impressive growth in the first three decades of its existence by embracing religious conservatism. The book profiles extraordinary people-lawyers, poets, musicians and even a former military chief-who stood up to an oppressive state. It has historical anecdotes, like the story of an ordinary woman who became the 'muse and mistress', and often the 'brains behind the regime of a swinging general' who led Pakistan to ignominy in the 1971 war, that of a Sikh family which dared to swim against the tide to stay back in Pakistan after Partition, and a prostitute's son who uses his art to humanize commercial sex workers in defiance of a conservative society. The book attempts to present a contemporary portrait of Pakistan-where prohibition remains only on paper and one of the biggest taxpayers is a Parsee-owned brewery-as a complicated and conflicted country suspended between tradition and modernity.

Bridging the Class Divide

Bridging the Class Divide
Author: Linda Stout
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 1997-02-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780807043097

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Again and again social change movements--on matter s from the environment to women's rights--have been run by middle-class leaders. But in order to make real progress toward economic and social change, poor people--those most affected by social problems--must be the ones to speak up and lead. It can be done. Linda Stout herself grew up in poverty in rural North Carolina and went on to found one of this country's most successful and innovative grassroots organizations, the Piedmont Peace Project. Working for peace, jobs, health care, and basic social services in North Carolina's conservative Piedmont region, the project has attracted national attention for its success in drawing leadership from within a working-class community, actively encouraging diversity, and empowering people who have never had a voice in policy decisions to speak up for their own interests. The Piedmont Peace Project demonstrates that new ways of organizing can really work. Bridging the Class Divide tells the inspiring story of Linda Stout's life as the daughter of a tenant farmer, as a self-taught activist, and as a leader in the progressive movement. It also gives practical lessons on how to build real working relationships between people of different income levels, races, and genders. This book will inspire and enrich anyone who works for change in our society.

The Other Side of Mercy

The Other Side of Mercy
Author: Ken Armstrong
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2010
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1608447340

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On a fall morning in the Pacific Northwest, in a coffee shop with four police officers as customers, a burst of gunfire announced a shocking ambush that devastated the Puget Sound and swept up everyone from judges in Tacoma to prison officials in Arkansas to candidates for president of the United States. The story of that morning's violence spans the decades and ripples across state lines. It is a story of our nation's racial divide; of southern prison farms and an act of grace; of festering hate and missed opportunities to stop a man going mad. For its coverage of the shootings and the manhunt that followed, the Seattle Times won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news. Now the newspaper's staff goes deeper, telling the story of a charismatic felon, a minister with his eyes on the White House, and what can lie on the other side of mercy. So often, when someone does something shocking, people want to know: What was he thinking? What was Timothy McVeigh thinking? What about those kids at Columbine? In western Washington, in the fall of 2009, Maurice Clemmons planned to do something shocking. And he left no doubt what he was thinking. The Other Side of Mercy draws upon a stunning trove of records-including a hundred-plus hours of Clemmons' recorded telephone conversations-to describe in remarkable detail Clemmons' past and the steps he took along the way to committing one of the worst crimes in the modern history of the Pacific Northwest. The Other Side of Mercy recounts Clemmons' childhood in a small Arkansas town that had descended into chaos and economic ruin. Racial hostilities were such that sniper bullets flew and buildings were firebombed. Clemmons turned to burglary and robbery, and, at the age of seventeen, was shipped off to a prison farm system so notorious that it was memorialized in the movie Brubaker. Drawing upon a prison file eighteen-hundred pages thick, The Other Side of Mercy takes readers inside the prison barracks and into the fields, as Clemmons racks up enemies, extorting other inmates and waging fights with makeshift weapons. Clemmons makes a plea for mercy to Mike Huckabee, the Arkansas governor who later runs for president. After managing to win his freedom, Clemmons moves to Washington state and becomes both predator and prey, dealing drugs while dreaming of wealth through a variety of fantastical enterprises. He believes Donald Trump will make him rich. That he can game the Bank of America. That a self-proclaimed prophet in New York City holds the key to prosperity. Clemmons descends into madness, while making plans of striking back at the people he blames for his lost youth and uncertain future.

Why We're Polarized

Why We're Polarized
Author: Ezra Klein
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2020-01-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1476700397

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ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 One of Bill Gates’s “5 books to read this summer,” this New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller shows us that America’s political system isn’t broken. The truth is scarier: it’s working exactly as designed. In this “superbly researched” (The Washington Post) and timely book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us—and how we are polarizing it—with disastrous results. “The American political system—which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president—is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,” writes political analyst Ezra Klein. “We are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.” “A thoughtful, clear and persuasive analysis” (The New York Times Book Review), Why We’re Polarized reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics. Over the past fifty years in America, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. These merged identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together. Klein shows how and why American politics polarized around identity in the 20th century, and what that polarization did to the way we see the world and one another. And he traces the feedback loops between polarized political identities and polarized political institutions that are driving our system toward crisis. “Well worth reading” (New York magazine), this is an “eye-opening” (O, The Oprah Magazine) book that will change how you look at politics—and perhaps at yourself.

Why Cities Lose

Why Cities Lose
Author: Jonathan A. Rodden
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2019-06-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1541644255

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A prizewinning political scientist traces the origins of urban-rural political conflict and shows how geography shapes elections in America and beyond Why is it so much easier for the Democratic Party to win the national popular vote than to build and maintain a majority in Congress? Why can Democrats sweep statewide offices in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan yet fail to take control of the same states' legislatures? Many place exclusive blame on partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression. But as political scientist Jonathan A. Rodden demonstrates in Why Cities Lose, the left's electoral challenges have deeper roots in economic and political geography. In the late nineteenth century, support for the left began to cluster in cities among the industrial working class. Today, left-wing parties have become coalitions of diverse urban interest groups, from racial minorities to the creative class. These parties win big in urban districts but struggle to capture the suburban and rural seats necessary for legislative majorities. A bold new interpretation of today's urban-rural political conflict, Why Cities Lose also points to electoral reforms that could address the left's under-representation while reducing urban-rural polarization.

Going to Extremes

Going to Extremes
Author: Cass R. Sunstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2009
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0199754128

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"In Going to Extremes, renowned legal scholar and best-selling author Cass R. Sunstein offers startling insights into why and when people gravitate toward extremism."--Inside jacket.

Talking Across the Divide

Talking Across the Divide
Author: Justin Lee
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2018-08-14
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 052550463X

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A guide to learning how to communicate with people who have diametrically opposed opinions from you, how to empathize with them, and how to (possibly) change their minds America is more polarized than ever. Whether the issue is Donald Trump, healthcare, abortion, gun control, breastfeeding, or even DC vs Marvel, it feels like you can't voice an opinion without ruffling someone's feathers. In today's digital age, it's easier than ever to build walls around yourself. You fill up your Twitter feed with voices that are angry about the same issues and believe as you believe. Before long, you're isolated in your own personalized echo chamber. And if you ever encounter someone outside of your bubble, you don't understand how the arguments that resonate so well with your peers can't get through to anyone else. In a time when every conversation quickly becomes a battlefield, it's up to us to learn how to talk to each other again. In Talking Across the Divide, social justice activist Justin Lee explains how to break through the five key barriers that make people resist differing opinions. With a combination of psychological research, pop-culture references, and anecdotes from Justin's many years of experience mediating contentious conversations, this book will help you understand people on the other side of the argument and give you the tools you need to change their minds--even if they've fallen for "fake news."